Sunday, January 29, 2017

Krishna West Is a Pest (Update)

A Response to "Who is Giridhari das?"

BY: KRISHNA DASI (India)

I experienced mixed feelings while reading the article "Who is Giridhari das?" Although the author deserves kudos for raising his voice against this shameless deviation going on in name of preaching, he speaks as if he had made a new discovery. I wonder if the author himself lives in Brazil and knows well the local devotees and leaders. His reporting Giridhari das to Hridayananda das Gosvami is pathetic, and shows how deluded the author himself is. That is as ludicrous as reporting Meghanada to Ravana. Sounds like the author doesn't know that Hridayananda is a pioneer in introducing all kinds of deviations and that Giridhari das is one of his most obedient sons and gives him great pride when he shows how nicely he learnt everything, as in the mentioned video.

[PADA: Yes, we have had the same experience, various devotees are telling PADA how proud they are -- that they wrote a letter of complaint to the GBC, which is like writing to the bank robbers -- to complain about banks being robbed? It makes no sense? For example, PADA has recently been invited to an independent forum of devotees, a few of them are Prabhupadaungas -- and thus, the defenders of the GBC on the forum are basically being clobbered. This process has to be done outside the GBC's controlled venues and forums, where we are regularly banned and blocked etc. Yep, some of the GBC's defender folks on this independent forum started to argue the GBC / Rocana / Torben Nielsen / Ajit Krishna / Kailash chandra idea -- that Krishna and his parampara are posthumous and post mortem, apparently the parampara suffers from rigor mortis for these folks. Yep, these poor people also cannot not even identify who is their living guru, and neither can the GBC's folks identify theirs -- on this forum. Bluffers. All they know is -- Srila Prabhupada is not the guru -- and apparently, no one else is either? Mayavada! Maybe they worship the captain of San Francisco ghost ship?

Yep! You'd need to make your own independent newsletters, web sites, forums etc., and / or you'd need to address things publicly yourself and etc. because talking to the deviants does not reduce the deviations. Of course as soon as PADA starts making protests against the sexual predator messiahs -- all sorts of people try to shut us down, because the deviants have a lot of sympathizers. Same basic problem we are having with HKC Jaipur folks, they are not happy with things, so they get cheap blessings from Prahlad das -- and start citing his shiksha gurus -- the GBC's guru club's biggest cheer leaders like Bhakta das and Hari Sauri, thinking that the people who are lost in the wilderness will lead them out of the wilderness. Another ex-HKC just told me the problem with these folks is, they want to be recognized as some sort of cheap gurus, which is why they go to obtain cheap blessings from similar cheap people.]

The author also expresses doubt whether most devotees and leaders there agree with Giridhari das, since no one bothered to reply to his complaints. Here again the author sounds as if he is very surprised and oblivious to the fact that what is passing in the name of ISKCON in Brazil is a bottomless can of worms where Srila Prabhupada's instructions and standards have no place.

[PADA: Bottomless can of worms ... of coursel!]

Giridhari das at least has the guts to publicly declare what nearly every Hare Krsna in Brazil thinks and practices, that too with the full blessings of their gurus and authorities. As the old adage says, as the king, so the people. Of course, for them Srila Prabhupada is no authority, as Hridayananda taught them so well by publicly amending, correcting and denying his instructions so many times. All of them promise to follow the regulative principles at the moment of initiation, but they cross their fingers behind their back and give their own interpretation to each of the principles to avoid their literal meaning, as Giridhari das teaches us in his videos. Cases like this make me wonder when ISKCON will have the sort of excommunication system as other religious groups have.

[PADA: Right, the whole Krishna West concept teaches that KRISHNA's andSrila Prabhupada's ideas are out-moded, out-dated, and basically wrong, and so we need to more or less conform to modern society and even promote gay marriages etc. Hrdayananda baffled some devotees a while back when he walked into a temple without removing his shoes, and he launched into a giant tirade about modern education being a slaughterhouse, while he was himself going to college even while he was a guru, to get his Ph. D. degree (aka -- Howard J. Resnick, Ph.D.)? Aren't sannyasas supposed to go to college to set up preaching programs, not to go there to obtain their mundane education classes? And the rest of the GBC knew the whole time that HDG and Tamal were going to college while they were gurus and sannyasas?]One of the leading initiating gurus in Brazil once told me the same thing straight away – that no one can say that to have free sex with one's wife is illicit and that no scripture says so. This is what they usually tell their disciples in privacy, although they may avoid cameras and written statements to spare themselves from being publicly exposed, as Giridhari das is being now. Factually, many devotees there continue to worship Paramgati dasa as a bona fide spiritual master, even after he was removed from his position as sannyasi and initiator guru due to his sexual advances towards an underage boy.

They are so out-spaced that everyone there still calls Hridayananda "Acaryadeva" – although such titles have been banned decades ago –, think that he is a maha-bhagavata and believes that he was personally appointed by Prabhupada as his successor.

[PADA: And some followers of the Sridhara Maharaja (Tripurari swami et al.) program recently told PADA, we all know that Srila Prabhupada appointed 11 guru successors. NOPE! You guys appointed them as gurus, not Srila Prabhupada! You said they are the appointed gurus and no one else.]

Similarly, the author also speaks as if he didn't know that Hridayananda himself is also a pioneer in performing gay marriages, despite Srila Prabhupada's clear statement that this is abominable. His complaint to the GBC is also like crying in the wilderness, since Giridhari das himself is a member of the GBC, and is probably the kind of man they want, as birds of the same feather flock together.[PADA: Right, whole GBC is complicit in promoting all this rubbish.]

Since Srila Prabhupada's instructions in this regard are absolutely unambiguous, by claiming that the scriptures don't say that sex in only meant for procreation, Giridhari das is openly affirming that Srila Prabhupada's books are not scripture, and that his statements don't need to be taken into consideration. This he also what he learnt from Hridayananda, who is very fond of disagreeing with Prabhupada and making clear that he knows better than him, as he did when he publicly declared that he doesn't believe that Draupadi was disrobed, although Prabhupada himself told this pastime. As Giridhari das also doesn't give credit to Srila Prabhupada's words, he gives Kardama and Devahuti as an example to try to justify his free sex philosophy, but he ignores the following purport in which sex without procreation purposes is obviously ruled out:

"Kardama Muni was sexually stimulated, and he enjoyed his wife for many, many years in that part of Mount Meru. But his sex indulgence was praised by many, many Siddhas, beings who have attained perfection, because it was intended to produce good progeny for the good of universal affairs." (SB 3.23.39 purport)

Giridhari das also overlooks the fact that Kardama and Devahuti are prajapatis, not ordinary human beings, and that they were appointed by Lord Brahma to populate the universe. The devil quotes scripture. It is indeed shocking that Giridhari das presents himself as a Bhagavad-gita teacher, while in the mentioned video he seems to deny the existence of the following verse:

"I am the strength of the strong, devoid of passion and desire. I am sex life which is not contrary to religious principles, O lord of the Bharatas [Arjuna].

PURPORT

"The strong man's strength should be applied to protect the weak, not for personal aggression. Similarly, sex life, according to religious principles (dharma), should be for the propagation of children, not otherwise. The responsibility of parents is then to make their offspring Krsna conscious." (Bg 7.11)

Of course, here again, like Hridayananda, Giridhari das wants to impress upon his public that he knows the Gita better than Srila Prabhupada and can interpret the words dharma-aviruddha in his own way to say that "religious sex" has nothing to do with procreation. According to the human rights, he can do that, after all, as Prabhupada used to point out, there are so many hundreds of commentaries on the Bhagavad-gita. Unfortunately, unauthorized commentaries never helped a single soul to progress even slightly in Krishna consciousness. So Hridayananda and Giridhari das think that just like Prabhupada has his own opinion and interpretation, they can have theirs, right? Wrong. Srila Prabhupada always made it clear that he is not adding anything but is just repeating the words of the previous acaryas. And who are the acaryas who say that religious sex is only meant for procreation? First of all, Sridhara Svami, the famous commentator of the Srimad-Bhagavatam, whom Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu venerated so much and about whom He proclaimed:

"One who does not accept the svami [husband] as an authority I consider a prostitute." (Caitanya-caritamrta Antya 7.115)

In his commentary on the above quoted verse from the Gita, Sridhara Svami clearly defines the words dharma-aviruddha as sex exclusively meant for procreation. As Giridhari das doesn't accept the Svami, it is no surprise that he is publicly advertising illicit sex like a prostitute. Moreover, Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti and Srila Baladeva Vidyabhusana say exactly the same thing in their commentaries on the same verse. These three acaryas' commentaries were the basis for Srila Prabhupada's purports, and all of them agree on this point. The available translations can be read at the end of this article.

The idea that sex has nothing to do with spiritual life is actually nothing new. Many other bogus gurus came up with this idea before. In the same way, more than a hundred years ago, Rama Krishna and Vivekananda were also preaching that food has nothing to do with spiritual life, and therefore one can eat meat without worries. [PADA: Yep, Rajneesh was preaching pretty much the same idea, freedom from sexual restrictions, which is why Srila Prabhupada was saying very unsavory things about these types of "new age" gurus.]This kind of "preaching" will be always very appealing to a large class of fools. At least Giridhari das is frank enough to admit that he is a follower of the material nature – implying mostly rajas and tamas – as he repeatedly says that it is totally "natural." As for the real transcendentalists in ISKCON, they are followers of His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada, not the material nature. They follow bona fide guru, sadhu and shastra, instead of denying them to follow the lower modes of material nature.

At the end of the article, it seems that the author finally comes to his senses and reaches the right conclusion – such preaching is nothing but a stratagem of Kali to destroy Srila Prabhupada's mission and establish demoniac principles instead of sanatana-dharma.

Anyone can find many more quotations in the Bhaktivedanta Vedabase Folio, therefore I am just giving a few here for the sake of the sincere readers, not for Giridhari das and not for Hridayananda, for they are hopeless cases and have their own agenda – to replace ISKCON with their concocted New Age cult called "Krishna West," in which regulative principles are an Indian thing that can be ignored.

[PADA: Oddly, the GBC is relying more and more on the Hindus, while basically saying the Hindus are old fashioned fuddy duddy kooks.]

"A householder may have wife, may have sex life, but that is for having children only, that's all. A householder does not mean he gets license to legalize prostitution. That is not householder. Householder can simply have sex life to beget nice child, that's all, no more. That is householder life; completely controlled. Householder does not mean whenever he has got this machine and he can use it. No." (Bhagavad-gita 6.46-47 -- Los Angeles, February 21, 1969)

"You have got one wife or one husband, and that is also restricted: only for begetting child you can have sex life. So many things. The whole idea is restriction. Not that 'Because I have got a wife it is a machine for sex life.' No, no. A marriage mean, that does not mean. Marriage does not mean like that. It is restriction." (Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.5.9-11 -- New Vrindaban, June 6, 1969)

"But the proposal that marriage will solve the question of lust, is not practical. Neither wife should be accepted as a machine for satisfying our lust. The marriage tie should be taken as very sacred. One who marries for subduing lust is mistaken." (Letter to: Hayagriva -- Seattle 7 October, 1968)

"As sense control is the beginning of pious life, illicit sex is the beginning of sinful life. One should not engage in illicit sex, or sex for any reason except having a child with one's wife. Marriage is meant for begetting children, and in that sense it is a religious institution. Lord Krsna confirms this in the Bhagavad-gita (7.11): dharmaviruddho bhutesu kamo 'smi. "I am sex that does not contradict religious principles." (Second Chance 13: Ajamila Begins His Degraded Life)

"For instance, we say, 'No illicit sex.' The Vedic system teaches that one who wants to have sex must get married and live according to religious principles. Then the husband and the wife can satisfy their desire for sex by begetting good children. There is no prohibition against sex; it is allowed. But not illicit sex. Engaging in illicit sex means you increase your attachment for sex, not Krsna. Therefore it is forbidden." The Quest for Enlightenment 7a: The Yoga of Pure Attachment)

"So they are passing, 'Yes, you can have homosex with man.' They are getting man-to-man marriage. You know? They are performing the marriage ceremony between man to man in the open church. What class of men they are? And they are priest. Just see. Such degraded persons." (Morning Walk -- May 13, 1975, Perth)

"Priest should be ideal character. And they are advocating homosex. So where is the ideal character men? If the priestly class they are going to hospital for drinking habit, and they are allowing man-to-man marriage and homosex, then where is ideal character?" (Room Conversation with Director of Research of the Dept. of Social Welfare -- May 21, 1975, Melbourne)

"My Dear Lalitananda dasa, Please accept my blessings. I am in due receipt of your letter dated May 13rd, 1975 and have noted the contents. I am very sorry that you have taken to homosex. It will not help you advance in your attempt for spiritual life. In fact, it will only hamper your advancement. I do not know why you have taken to such abominable activities. What can I say? Anyway, try to render whatever service you can to Krishna. Even though you are in a very degraded condition Krishna, being pleased with your service attitude, can pick you up from your fallen state. You should stop this homosex immediately. It is illicit sex, otherwise, your chances of advancing in spiritual life are nil. Show Krishna you are serious, if you are. I hope this meets you in good health."

=========================[PADA: Yes, we should not compromise the principles for some cheap followers:]

The word jīva-hiṁsā (envy of other living entities) actually means stopping the preaching of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Preaching work is described as paropakāra, welfare activity for others. Those who are ignorant of the benefits of devotional service must be educated by preaching. If one stops preaching and simply sits down in a solitary place, he is engaging in material activity. If one desires to make a compromise with the Māyāvādīs, he is also engaged in material activity. A devotee should never make compromises with nondevotees. By acting as a professional guru, mystic yogī or miracle man, one may cheat and bluff the general public and gain fame as a wonderful mystic, but all this is considered to be dust, straw and grains of sand within the heart. In addition, one should follow the regulative principles and not desire illicit sex, gambling, intoxicants or meat. (Srila Prabhupada, CC Madhya 12.135, Purport)

PADA: Meanwhile Rocana says these living gurus like Hrdayananda are still a good idea, we just need to simply increase the administration rules over them to contain their deviations better. OK Rocana has no idea that gurus do not deviate and thus do not need administration rules to be enforced over them. ys pd] =======================